In the Land of the Head Hunters

Okay, first off, check the date - "In the Land of the Head Hunters" is a reconstructed and remastered print of a film made in 1914, by Edward S. Curtis, known mostly now as a photographer and ethnographer. As such, it is entirely of its time - i.e., racist, sexist and certainly specious in its depiction of a First Nations people. But valuable for all of that. The story line, for what it's worth, concerns a young son of a tribal chief who does his manhood rituals, falls in love and marries the daughter of another tribe's chieftain; this upsets the Sorceror, brother of yet another tribal chief who wanted the girl for himself - mayhem ensues, mostly in canoes but also on land, until eventually the good guy prevails. It's simplistic and definitely racist - the people are portrayed as quaintly primitive, the women are completely subservient to the men, and the main occupation of the tribes involves war and cutting off the heads of enemies.

Given that this is actually set in the Pacific Northwest, between Washington State, USA, and British Columbia, Canada, the whole head- hunting aspect is completely off. Not to mention the "primitive" label - these peoples were highly sophisticated, just not in a form recognized (at the time) by Europeans. But the positives in this film are quite striking too. First of all, the actors are all actual members of the Kwakwaka'wakw Nation, from Vancouver Island, and the costumes, totem poles and especially the special dances are all authentic. The story, by white director Curtis, is worthless; as a bit of filmed historical information, however, the movie is quite valuable. Many scenes were lost over the past 100 years, and the restorers opted to insert still photographs (also by Curtis, of the same people) to bridge the gaps, which doesn't work all that well dramatically, but is again useful as an historical artifact; they also were able to restore the original orchestral soundtrack, which adds drama to this silent movie. Certainly not for everyone, but film historians and anthropologists might find something of value here.

In 1914, famed photographer Edward Curtis (1868-1952) produced this melodramatic, silent film. The first feature-length film to exclusively star Native North Americans (eight years before Robert Flaherty made his documentary "Nanook of the North"), it features non- professional actors from Kwakwaka'wakw (Kwakiutl) communities in British Columbia—a people already famous then for their spectacular visual culture and performances. The film was only screened a few times on both coasts, accompanied by a live musical score composed by John Braham (1848-1919; best known for his work with Gilbert and Sullivan in New York) that was based in part on Curtis's c.1910 wax-cylinder field recordings of songs and chants. A critical success but a financial disappointment, Curtis quickly abandoned it.

The film was largely forgotten for decades until it was restored and re-edited around 1970 by Bill Holm and George Quimby, at which point its name was changed to "In the Land of the War Canoes." This version is marked by a slightly restructured narrative, the addition of new, less sensational inter-titles, and a new Kwakwaka'wakw-produced soundtrack of music, sound effects, and dialog (it is currently released by Milestone Films). Until now, all contemporary scholars have relied upon this re-edited version in their appraisals and analyses of Curtis's film.

Recently, Brad Evans has examined the original, silent cut of the film (via a black and white, 16mm copy at the Field Museum in Chicago, the same that Holm and Quimby used), which retains Curtis's narrative structure and inter-titles (see bibliography below). In addition, the UCLA Film and TV Archive (Los Angeles) has discovered three nitrate reels from the original film—complete with extensive tinting and toning as well as a whole scene absent from the Field copy—which have never been examined by film scholars. Meanwhile, Aaron Glass located the original musical score (at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles), and the original Curtis field recordings (at the Archive of Traditional Music in Bloomington, Indiana). None of this material has been presented publicly since 1915.

A project is now underway to reunite the film with the music commissioned for it (and the Native music which inspired that), and present it at screenings in the summer of 2008 with the involvement of indigenous people who participated in its making. The project promises to restore a number of important, historical elements to better contextualize Curtis's original vision for his film: its title, inter-titles, melodramatic narrative, tinted colors, and music. At the same time, presenting the film today with current Kwakwaka'wakw performers will reframe the film from being a document of the "vanishing races" to being visual evidence of cultural survival during the colonial era.

For more information, see www.curtisfilm.rutgers.edu.

Edwin S. Curtis's primary medium was still photography; he took pictures of native peoples. This documentary about the Kwakiutls of British Columbia contains some nice images--especially those from a buoyant camera within a canoe. The animal costumes and collecting of heads is worth looking at. The story that Curtis attached to his ethnographic record is uninteresting and untrustworthy, though. The films of Robert Flaherty to the films of Michael Moore have been accused of fictionalization, but at least those narratives, true to documentary film-making or not, are entertaining. As far as making the subject interesting to me, Curtis failed. The documentary itself, however, is very old--the earliest feature-length documentary I've seen. The film itself more so than the subject has become the artifact of interest.

As a silent film enthusiast, I'm all for the restoration of old movies especially something as old and and as rare as this Edward S. Curtis film. The fact that it is 100 years old is astonishing. The fact that it it isn't in better condition is, alas, not astonishing at all as that is the fate of the majority of surviving silent films. The funds needed to do a proper restoration are astronomical by arts funding standards and then there's the issue of the material that the restorer has to work with.

IN THE LAND OF THE HEAD HUNTERS (the film's original title) was issued back in the 1970s as IN THE LAND OF THE WAR CANOES. The running time was roughly 45 minutes and this consisted of the best surviving footage from the original feature. It was marketed as a quasi-documentary made more authentic by the use of a Native American soundtrack consisting of authentic voices and instruments plus some water sounds. Milestone issued this DVD back in 1992 and it is included as a bonus with this set.

It turns out that Curtis never intended his movie to be a documentary but rather a traditional feature film just one set in the world of the Kwakiutl Indians of the Pacific Northwest, a world out of their distant past. He hired locals to portray his characters while they built the sets and made and provided the costumes. Curtis then hired composer John J. Braham to provide a complete classical music score with Native American overtones for the film. As this was 1914, it pre-dates BIRTH OF A NATION making it one of the oldest surviving film scores.

IN THE LAND OF THE HEAD HUNTERS (a surefire if somewhat lurid choice for a movie title back then) was to tell an epic story, be shot on location using local actors, and then given the full treatment from a fully composed score to specific color tints for several of the scenes. Not exactly what one would consider a box office winner but this was before Hollywood and the exotic locations plus Curtis' reputation as a still photographer did the trick and the film was a critical success at the time and then completely disappeared.

The recent discovery of the original orchestral score plus footage found in UCLA film archives helped to set this restoration in motion which brings up the following point. The footage of the restored version looks virtually the same as the 1972 version with title cards instead of subtitles which accounts for most of the extra length. The use of stills and the inclusion of badly decomposed footage adds little to the proceedings for me personally although the color tints are nice and it is great to hear the original score. As a silent film lover, I'm glad to have both versions but this time I found the older one more engaging than the newer one...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

"The plotters, anticipating Motana's death, "mourn" him as his hair, stuffed into the bodies of toads, smokes over their fire" reads one of the title cards. This is, after all, a documentary about the Kwakiutl Indians. And yet, clearly, it is a directed story film. It's an unusual sort of film these days, limited to "novel and astonishing works of unprefigured genius" like THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY, but in reality, this is how documentaries started. Flaherty "cheated" by modern standards on NANOOK OF THE NORTH. CHANG has a story line imposed on it. While unedited footage of Kwakiutl Indians carving totem poles might have been a big draw in 1896, by 1914 the sophisticated filmgoer demanded more: a story line. And so we had this, by modern standard, odd .... well, call it a "mockumentary", but not in the sense of a Christopher Guest film. We see real Kwakiutls in real Kwakiutl regalia dancing real Kwakiutl war dances aboard real Kwakiutl war canoes. It's just that it's edited together and given titles to make it a story.

Interestingly, although a story film, this movie survives because it was saved at a couple of museums. So what can we make of it?

Well, make of it what you want. A feature film from the dawn of feature films; fascinating shots of Kwakiutl Indians when they still did these things. Do you want egg in your beer?